Post by Administration on Mar 26, 2010 8:48:16 GMT
The Irish Times - Thursday, March 25, 2010
Faithful asked to repent for sins of the fathers
PATSY McGARRY
www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2010/0325/1224267012490.html
OPINION: Why are churchgoers in Galway being asked to seek forgiveness for crimes they did not commit or cover up?
NEXT SUNDAY is Palm Sunday and Bishop of Galway Martin Drennan has planned a service of reparation in the city’s cathedral at which all will seek forgiveness for clerical child sex abuse.
Twelve years ago, on May 18th, 1998, there was a similar service at St Andrew’s Church on Dublin’s Westland Row. The then archbishop Desmond Connell led that special “service of prayer and healing for those who had suffered abuse in parishes and institutions run by the church”.
St Andrew’s was full. Included were many members of religious congregations. Cardinal Connell spoke of “the pain of those who often cried in vain for help and of those who could not even name their anguish”.
Members of the congregation lit candles from a large “candle of healing” on the altar and were blessed with the Sign of the Cross, “as a gesture of healing”.
Afterwards a rose bed was inaugurated by the cardinal as night descended on Archbishop Ryan Park, Merrion Square. A sign dedicated the rose bed to all those who had been “physically, mentally, emotionally, or sexually abused”.
And all went home happy.
That wonderful little gesture was somewhat spoiled earlier by the unexpected arrival in St Andrew’s of Christine Buckley. She had been the focus of Dear Daughter , a documentary about savage abuse of children in Dublin’s Goldenbridge orphanage, broadcast by RTÉ in 1996.
The abuse was denied by the Sisters of Mercy.
Buckley had not been invited to the service. To make matters worse, when there, she hadn’t the good grace to behave as expected of a former Goldenbridge girl and sing the hymns or light a candle or take part in any of the many, sweet symbolic gestures on offer. Later that evening, talking to this reporter, she wondered why the readings of stories of violence were from the Old Testament when they could have been from Goldenbridge. And she recalled two nuns saying, on seeing her there: “. . . Would you look at that brazen hussey”.
Thanks to the Murphy report we now know that at the time Cardinal Connell had only given gardaí details of allegations of child sex abuse against 17 of the 28 priests the archdiocese knew faced such complaints.
The report also disclosed that he was similarly reserved when dealing with the Vatican. Three years after that service in St Andrew’s, and following Cardinal Ratzinger’s two Latin letters in 2001 advising that all such cases be sent to him and that this be kept secret, Cardinal Connell referred just 19 of the aforementioned 28 Dublin cases to Rome.
That 19 did not include Ivan Payne (who abused Andrew Madden), Bill Carney (featured recently on the BBC Newsnight programme), or two other priests (one laicised) who cannot yet be named for legal reasons. And now we see that Bishop Drennan has invited the people of his diocese to a service of reparation in Galway Cathedral next Sunday.
Faithful asked to repent for sins of the fathers
PATSY McGARRY
www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2010/0325/1224267012490.html
OPINION: Why are churchgoers in Galway being asked to seek forgiveness for crimes they did not commit or cover up?
NEXT SUNDAY is Palm Sunday and Bishop of Galway Martin Drennan has planned a service of reparation in the city’s cathedral at which all will seek forgiveness for clerical child sex abuse.
Twelve years ago, on May 18th, 1998, there was a similar service at St Andrew’s Church on Dublin’s Westland Row. The then archbishop Desmond Connell led that special “service of prayer and healing for those who had suffered abuse in parishes and institutions run by the church”.
St Andrew’s was full. Included were many members of religious congregations. Cardinal Connell spoke of “the pain of those who often cried in vain for help and of those who could not even name their anguish”.
Members of the congregation lit candles from a large “candle of healing” on the altar and were blessed with the Sign of the Cross, “as a gesture of healing”.
Afterwards a rose bed was inaugurated by the cardinal as night descended on Archbishop Ryan Park, Merrion Square. A sign dedicated the rose bed to all those who had been “physically, mentally, emotionally, or sexually abused”.
And all went home happy.
That wonderful little gesture was somewhat spoiled earlier by the unexpected arrival in St Andrew’s of Christine Buckley. She had been the focus of Dear Daughter , a documentary about savage abuse of children in Dublin’s Goldenbridge orphanage, broadcast by RTÉ in 1996.
The abuse was denied by the Sisters of Mercy.
Buckley had not been invited to the service. To make matters worse, when there, she hadn’t the good grace to behave as expected of a former Goldenbridge girl and sing the hymns or light a candle or take part in any of the many, sweet symbolic gestures on offer. Later that evening, talking to this reporter, she wondered why the readings of stories of violence were from the Old Testament when they could have been from Goldenbridge. And she recalled two nuns saying, on seeing her there: “. . . Would you look at that brazen hussey”.
Thanks to the Murphy report we now know that at the time Cardinal Connell had only given gardaí details of allegations of child sex abuse against 17 of the 28 priests the archdiocese knew faced such complaints.
The report also disclosed that he was similarly reserved when dealing with the Vatican. Three years after that service in St Andrew’s, and following Cardinal Ratzinger’s two Latin letters in 2001 advising that all such cases be sent to him and that this be kept secret, Cardinal Connell referred just 19 of the aforementioned 28 Dublin cases to Rome.
That 19 did not include Ivan Payne (who abused Andrew Madden), Bill Carney (featured recently on the BBC Newsnight programme), or two other priests (one laicised) who cannot yet be named for legal reasons. And now we see that Bishop Drennan has invited the people of his diocese to a service of reparation in Galway Cathedral next Sunday.